Curated category
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
- J. R. R. TolkienOn the evening of his 21st birthday, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien sat down and wrote a letter to a young woman named Edith Mary Bratt.
- Elton JohnElton John performed "Candle in the Wind 1997" live exactly once: on the 6th of September 1997, at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in Westminster…
- Ian McKellenIan McKellen was nine years old when his main Christmas present arrived: a fold-away wood and bakelite Victorian theatre from Pollocks Toy Theatres, complete…
- Christopher NolanChristopher Nolan does not own a smartphone, and he has no email address. He hand-delivers his scripts to the actors he wants, and his wife handles the rest…
- Michael CaineMaurice Joseph Micklewhite was born on the 14th of March 1933 at St Olave's Hospital in Rotherhithe, a working-class district of London, the son of a fish…
- Tom HardyTom Hardy walked into a modelling competition in 1998 at 21 years old and walked out with a contract. That is not how most serious actors begin.
- Kate BushKate Bush was born on the 30th of July 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent, and by the time she was nineteen she had done something no woman in pop history had ever…
- Benedict CumberbatchBenedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch was born on the 19th of July 1976 at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in Hammersmith, London. His parents were both actors.
- Jonathan PryceJonathan Pryce was born John Price on the 1st of June 1947 in Carmel, Flintshire, the son of a former coal miner who ran a small grocery shop.
- Arthur C. ClarkeIn February 1945, a young radar officer named Arthur C. Clarke sent a letter to the editor of Wireless World. He suggested that stations placed in…
- Eric ClaptonEric Patrick Clapton was born on the 30th of March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, to a sixteen-year-old mother and a Canadian soldier who had already shipped back…
- Stanley SadieStanley John Sadie spent the better part of three decades turning a nine-volume reference work into a twenty-volume monument that reshaped how the world…
- Alec GuinnessAlec Guinness walked onto a stage for the first time on his 20th birthday, the 2nd of April 1934, earning a single pound a week and permitted to utter just…
- David LeanDavid Lean spent fourteen years in silence after one of the most brutal critical encounters in cinema history. At a lunch in the Algonquin Hotel in New York…
- Nicholas CraftsNicholas Francis Robert Crafts entered the world on the 9th of March 1949 in Nottingham, England. He attended Brunts Grammar School in Mansfield before…
- George MartinGeorge Martin stood at a mixing desk on the 26th of November 1962, listening to the Beatles run through "Please Please Me" for a third time.
- Alexander McQueenAlexander McQueen drew a dress on the wall of his East London family home when he was three years old. That crayon scrawl in Stratford is where the story of…
- William DalrympleWilliam Dalrymple first arrived in Delhi on the 26th of January 1984, a teenager who had grown up on the shores of the Firth of Forth in North Berwick…
- Stephen HawkingStephen Hawking spent his final years communicating at roughly one word per minute, twitching a single cheek muscle to select letters from a screen.
- Tom StoppardTom Stoppard was born Tomáš Sträussler in Zlín, Czechoslovakia, on the 3rd of July 1937, and he died on the 29th of November 2025, at his home in Dorset…
- Demis HassabisDemis Hassabis was born on the 27th of July 1976 in North London. He began playing chess at the age of four and reached a master standard by thirteen.
- Petula ClarkPetula Clark was performing for troops during the Blitz when she was still a child, her photo plastered on British Army tanks as a good-luck mascot.
- Peter Blake (artist)Peter Blake was born in Dartford, Kent, on the 25th of June 1932, and he would go on to create one of the most recognised images of the twentieth century.
- Eric BlomEric Walter Blom was born in Bern, Switzerland on the 20th of August 1888, and he died on the 11th of April 1959, but in between he shaped how the…
- David AttenboroughDavid Attenborough turned 100 years old on the 8th of May 2026, and the Royal Albert Hall filled with singers, filmmakers, composers, and royalty to mark the…
- Edwin MuirEdwin Muir was born on the 15th of May 1887 at the farm of Folly in Deerness, a parish in Orkney, and in his own words he arrived in Glasgow in 1901 feeling…
- Rayner UnwinIn 1936, a ten-year-old boy named Rayner Unwin sat at his father's desk in Hampstead, London. He held a manuscript titled The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.
- Philip LarkinPhilip Larkin was offered the post of Poet Laureate in 1984, and he turned it down. The death of Sir John Betjeman had opened the role, the highest poetic…
- David StarkeyDavid Starkey was born on the 3rd of January 1945 in Kendal, Westmorland, with two club feet, into a household that often had no income coming in at all.
- Philippa GregoryPhilippa Gregory was born on the 9th of January 1954 in Nairobi, then the capital city of the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya.
- John BoormanJohn Boorman was born on the 18th of January 1933 in Shepperton, Middlesex, the son of a pub landlord whose own father had made and lost several fortunes as…
- Naomi MitchisonNaomi Mitchison was born in Edinburgh on the 1st of November 1897 and died at Carradale on the 11th of January 1999 at the age of 101.
- Frederick CoplestonFrederick Charles Copleston was born on the 10th of April 1907 in the parish of Trull, near Taunton in Somerset, and he would go on to write one of the most…
- Correlli BarnettCorrelli Barnett was born on the 28th of June 1927 in Norbury, in the County Borough of Croydon, into a Britain that still considered itself a great power.
- Simon CallowSimon Callow was born on the 15th of June 1949 in Streatham, South London, and his path into acting began not in a classroom or a casting office, but with a…
- Martin GilbertMartin Gilbert was born on the 25th of October 1936, the son of a north London jeweller whose family name had once been Goldberg.